NOM Promotes Article Comparing Gay Surrogacy To Rape

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) published a column Wednesday asserting that gay men who seek out surrogates in order to have children are akin to “sexual predators” and rapists.

In a September 26 blog post, NOM’s Ruth Institute excerpted a column entitled “The New Sexual Predators,” which was originally published at the Witherspoon Institute’s Public Discourse blog. The column’s author, Alana S. Newman, argues that women must now defend themselves not only from “stereotypical sexual predators” but from “gay men who seek their eggs”:

By far, men have always been the main buyers of sexual access to fertile females. Women virtually never pay for sexual access to either gender. Women and girls make up the overwhelming majority of prostitutes and escorts, and men overwhelmingly make up the clientele.

[…]

Rape is another example of unbalanced behavior between the genders. Although women do rape, men force sexual access against their victims’ will much more often—and their victims are predominantly young (as in fertile)women.

[…]

But now there are new predators on the scene, for whom we do not have a script. There are new characters eager to exploit our daughters’ bodies, who enjoy unsullied reputations, passing detection even as they blatantly hunt for eggs and wombs with checkbooks in hand. And historically they have been the people women should fear the least.

These new players vying for access to young women’s bodies are older or infertile women, and gay men—quite often our friends and members of our family.

[…]

Proponents of redefining marriage call marriage equality “the civil rights struggle of our time.” TV shows such as The New Normal promote surrogacy arrangements with dialogue such as “a family is a family, and love is love.” Characters that criticize the use of surrogacy and egg donation are explicitly depicted as unsympathetic, racist, close-minded bigots.

What these shows (and other memes) do is insist that in order to be a friend to gay people, one must approve, or at least stay neutral toward, all forms of third-party reproduction.

So now, young women must do more than simply defend themselves against aggressive heterosexual males who want to use them for sex. They must also navigate a world filled with new, never-before-seen predators—people they thought they could trust—who aggressively target them for their eggs and their wombs. [emphasis added]

The utter stupidity of Newman’s argument cannot be understated. If a woman is willing to act as a surrogate for a gay couple, it is not a form of sexual assault, nor is it in any way comparable to committing an act of rape.

Same-sex couples that go through the difficult process of surrogacy deserve to be commended for their commitment to raising children -- not called sexual predators. The fact that NOM posted this column on its blog once again reveals the organization’s agenda is to attack gay and lesbian Americans, not just gay marriage.

This isn't the first time NOM has depicted gay couples seeking to raise children as predatory. Last November, Ruth Institute President Jennifer Morse implied that gay men were taking children away from their African-American parents.

UPDATE: Newman’s column has also been posted on Maggie Gallagher’s blog at the Culture War Victory Fund. Gallagher is one of NOM’s co-founders.